Essay: Worship rituals of Buddhists

For all Buddhists, the ritual of worship is essentially a respectful recognition of the greatness of the Buddha as a spiritual teacher that is a spring of the great message to millions of persons to eliminate their sufferings in life. In addition to that, worship ritual implies an expression of gratitude to the Buddha as founder of Buddhism for having discovered and revealed to humankind the path that leads out of the mass of worldly suffering.

The worship rituals are performed in the temple before the shrine room “a dagaba”[1]. The devotees usually make a straight line in rows in front of the place of worship and pass the items of offering from hand to hand towards the shrine room[2]. The content of the offerings is usually bowls of flowers, beverages, oil-lamps, fruit drinks, incense, joss sticks and medicinal items. Other food items presented as offerings help to provide for the temple maintaining persons, monks and priests. During this time of worship the there is no discrimination or distinction in worship practices since all the persons have equal salvation opportunity [3]in Buddhism. Thus no distinction of age, position, or sex is observed.